<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Open the Windows, Open the Doors by Senri</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25482538">Open the Windows, Open the Doors</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senri/pseuds/Senri'>Senri</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hanging Out with a Gamer Girl (Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:02:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,854</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25482538</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senri/pseuds/Senri</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Today there was a moment of silence - Nanami taking off her shoes, Shouko would realize later - and then <i>thump thump thump</i> as Nanami rushed into the kitchen, still wearing her backpack and coat.  Her eyes were red and swollen, her face was wet, Shouko had time to see that much before Nanami smashed into her mother and flung her arms around Shouko.  Shouko put her arms around Nanami’s shoulders, feeling her daughter shudder, still in tears.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ousaka Nanami &amp; Ousaka Shouko &amp; Ousaka Toshio</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Juletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Open the Windows, Open the Doors</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsin/gifts">Elsin</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Shouko was always in the kitchen when Nanami came home, and the rhythm of the front door opening, then closed always pleased her.  It was a semicolon in her day, when half her precious family was home.  The closer came when Toshio arrived, then they could settle in and their home would be cozy as a kotatsu.  </p><p>“Welcome home, darling!” Shouko called.  Nanami practiced being tough outside but Shouko knew her daughter, now nearly grown-up, was still more sensitive than anyone would guess; after all, Nanami still called her <i>mama</i>.</p><p>If it were a usual day Nanami would call back to her <i>hello, mama!</i> kicking off her shoes in the entryway like a disorderly child, dropping her coat, backpack, books and everything else left and right to rush in for a hug.  </p><p>Today there was a moment of silence - Nanami taking off her shoes, Shouko would realize later - and then <i>thump thump thump</i> as Nanami rushed into the kitchen, still wearing her backpack and coat.  Her eyes were red and swollen, her face was wet, Shouko had time to see that much before Nanami smashed into her mother and flung her arms around Shouko.  Shouko put her arms around Nanami’s shoulders, feeling her daughter shudder, still in tears.</p><p>“Darling, what happened?”  Shouko abandoned dinner preparations and maneuvered them towards Nanami’s bedroom, urging her daughter to sit on the bed.  Nanami slouched her shoulders but didn’t seem to want to let go once they were sitting.  She squeezed in closer instead, pressing her face against her mother’s stomach.  Shouko stroked Nanami’s hair, then tugged at the backpack, urging her daughter to drop it.  When Nanami finally wiggled her shoulders to dislodge the bag Shouko sat with her. </p><p>“I’m not going back, mama,” Nanami sniffled out at last.  “I can’t go to school tomorrow.  I would rather die.  I won’t go, I won’t go.”</p><p>Shouko felt a hard squeeze on her heart, but she had always been a calm person, even growing up.  Nanami tried hard to be poised and firm in her likes, but Shouko had always seen the sweetest parts of her daughter.  Nanami had some odd interests, but Shouko knew she was a good girl who wanted to be helpful to others and liked.</p><p>“Darling,” she had to cede, because hadn’t she always known it could come to this?  “If you want to stay home, of course you can.  Can you tell me why you’re so upset?  We can work it out.”</p><p>Nanami clamped on like a limpet, wetting the belly of Shouko’s house dress, but Shouko waited for her daughter patiently, stroking her hair.  Well, young people sometimes became shut-ins.  It hurt to think of Nanami being so wounded she shut away like that but what could her mother do but love her and help her?</p><p>Eventually Nanami told Shouko the story.</p><p>She’d been eating at McDonald’s with Hayato, Shiori, and Kaho after yearbook club wrapped up.  It had been a busy two hours in which they discussed the photo collage arrangements for tennis club and science club.  “We have to make everyone look cool!” Shiori chirped.  <i>Shiori</i> was always so cool, she had a mean hand with Photoshop’s lasso tool and her family took fancy vacations to interesting places.  Shiori had learned to scuba dive somewhere or other and had a way of being lowkey about it but never letting anybody forget.</p><p>“I think for science club we should get the members to do a write-up on some of their coolest experiments,” Hayato said.   Hayato knew how to talk to girls and flirt already when some of the guys their age still just made the girls want to run away.  He had long legs and could’ve been a track team star but somehow he’d landed in the yearbook club instead, maybe because of all the girls.</p><p>“You want to put in an educational page?  <i>Boring</i>,” Kaho said.  Nanami sensed in her a fellow fish out of water, a student from a lower tier of coolness and respectability, someone who was sitting in McDonald’s eating up fries with the leaders of tomorrow by mistake.  She was hard to like, since she undercut other people’s ideas and tried to swap in her own all the time.  Even so this time her idea sounded fun: “We should have them put in instructions for some experiments that students could do at home.”</p><p>“That could be dangerous,” was Shiori’s verdict.  “I don’t know what those guys play around with in there.  Anyway, how interesting can an experiment be if you just do it with things around your house?”</p><p>“I don’t know, it’s interesting, it’s <i>interactive</i>,” Hayato said.  “Forget about the science club, anyway.  How are we gonna deal with the art club?  We should have, like, gallery pages for them to show off their stuff, right?”</p><p>The lively discussion didn’t call for her participation and Nanami let her mind drift.  She should’ve joined something like art club, or the literature club.  She’d wanted to try yearbook club to do something new, but it turned out it drove her up the wall.  Who knew there were so many debates to have over how many times such-and-such a person had appeared in background photos rather than so-and-so?  She’d never have guessed that there’d be so many arguments to have about fonts and text placements.</p><p>Peten-chan was more interesting to think about.  Too bad there couldn’t be a yearbook page dedicated to her - Peten-chan, fighter of the dark and in the dark!  She’d probably crack her NeuroWhip and slice the tennis club collage into submission in a second.  The page could even feature her most dangerous enemies, their weak points and special attacks, to prepare new adventurers.</p><p>The yearbook was nothing compared to those ideas.  Gazing off into the corner, Nanami let out a wistful sigh.  She would rather be at home rushing through her homework and then playing games instead of dealing with the endless back-and-forth on this…</p><p>“You do that <i>all</i> the time,” Kaho’s voice intruded on her daydream.  Nanami blinked, swallowed the mostly-unchewed french fry in her mouth with a cough, and jerked back round to face the table.</p><p>“H-huh?”</p><p>“You do that <i>all</i> the time,” Kaho repeated, and then heaved a huge, exaggerated sigh - the thing she’d just complained about.  “If I had an ice cream for every time you did that!  Could you <i>please</i> pay attention?”</p><p>Nanami did her best to be gracious and poised but always confident, like her mama.  She always fell a little short of doing it properly, and in a moment she’d kick herself for later, instead of standing up for herself, she stared at Kaho and then felt her face light up in a blush that seemed just about ready to incinerate her.</p><p>Shiori looked like she was smothering a laugh.  “This is a really important job, you know, Nanami-chan.  It’s what we and our classmates will have to commemorate our year.”</p><p>Hayato actually did laugh.  </p><p>Nanami did not manage to get a word out for the rest of the meeting, but she didn’t woolgather.</p><p>It was not the first story like that she’d poured out to her mama, facedown in mama’s lap or crying on her stomach, and Shouko felt her heart ache as Nanami rushed it out yet again.  There were lots of ways for kids of that age to cut each other down, with just a few words!  What was anybody’s mama, even the most loving, to do, when she had to send her children out to face the rest of the world?</p><p>If only Nanami had more friends with common interests… perhaps the yearbook club had been too much of a stretch to start with.  Either way, Nanami was shaking her head firmly on the matter of school tomorrow, eying her mother with nerves evident but insisting: “I won’t go back.  Please, mama.  I don’t want to go back.  Don’t make me.”</p><p>“If we push it,” Shouko said to Toshio later that night, when Nanami was at last in bed, and they could talk alone… “They say hikikomori sometimes stay in only their rooms, withdrawing even from their families.  Imagine what a disaster that would be on top of this.  I think if we want to help Nanami through it, we should help her stay current on some schoolwork, like her maths, and support her however we can otherwise…”</p><p>In spite of his face and general presence, Toshio was a kind man.  That was why Shouko had married him.</p><p>So the months went on like that.  Nanami became borderline nocturnal and Shouko started playing games.  She wanted to share an interest with Nanami, although after a while, she started to enjoy them in her own right.  There were whole worlds to get lost in, and her daughter apparently had.  </p><p>Though not completely.  Not quite.  Her daughter ate with them, battled the occasional spate of math problems, played games with them sometimes - didn’t go out to the store, didn’t go to school, didn’t see anyone except her mama and papa, but at least she saw them.  Shouko comforted Toshio and herself with that fact.  Their sweet daughter was still with them.</p><p>The last thing Shouko expected after all the months of isolation was on a sunny afternoon to find Nanami in the foyer.</p><p>“Are you looking for your shoes?” Shouko asked her, before reaching up to a tall shelf in the coat closet and pulling down the box.</p><p>“Yes, thank you, mama!”  Nanami kept looking at her, eyes darting nervously between shoes, door, and Shouko.  “I, ah, I’m going…”</p><p>It had been such a long time, Shouko felt a shout of delight rise up her throat like a bubble.  She bit it back before it could escape.  “Where, darling?”</p><p>“I’m meeting someone…”</p><p>“Who?”</p><p>“My friend Kaori.  We play in a guild together.”</p><p>“Do you have your cell phone?  Your train pass?  Pocket money?”</p><p>“Of course I do, mama!”  Nanami reared her head up, imperious, but nervous, Shouko could just guess.  “I - used to do this kind of thing all the time, remember?  I’m totally fine.  Don’t worry.”</p><p>“See you this evening?”</p><p>“See you then.”  Nanami crammed her feet into her shoes and paused before taking anything else, looking at Shouko.  Then she got to her feet and in the same rush she used to come at her mama in the kitchen, the same rush she’d done after every bad day, she came for a hug now.  Shouko squeezed her tightly, and then, still squeezing her daughter, started baby-stepping them towards the door.</p><p>“Be safe.  Call your papa or me if you need to.”  She really had to stop making such a to-do of this, it would get Nanami worked up.  “And have fun, okay?”</p><p>With that Nanami was ushered out the door.  Shouko closed and locked it behind her, alone in the house for the first time in ages, and felt a wave of happiness wash over her from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes.</p><p>Then she went to text Toshio.  </p><p>It was high time their family had a little celebration.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for your request, Elsin!  I hope you enjoy it!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>